Monika Salzer

Monika Salzer (born 11 February 1948) is an Austrian psychotherapist, Protestant theologian and pastor, columnist, and author. She worked in hospitals handling clinical pastoral care for the seriously ill, including the education of voluntary caretakers. Later, she had a private practice as a systematic psychotherapist, helped to restructure the organisation of the Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession in Austria, was a columnist for the Kronen Zeitung, and co-founded the protest initiative Omas gegen Rechts (Grannies against the Right).

Life and career

Salzer was born in Vienna into a multi-cultural family. After the Matura, she was trained to be a laboratory assistant at the Vienna General Hospital, completing a diploma. She then studied psychology at the University of Vienna from 1968 to 1970. She studied Protestant theology from 1977 to 1983.

From 1983 to 1985, Salzer worked in a research project at the Orthopädisches Krankenhaus Gersthof, and wrote its report, Klinische Seelsorge an schwersterkrankten Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen (Clinical pastoral care for seriously ill adolescents and young adults), about taking spiritual care of young people treated for serious illnesses.

Salzer was ordained as a pastor in 1989, and worked for ten years at the Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Spital in Vienna, becoming engaged in the education of voluntary pastoral caretakers (Seelsorger). She founded church services for bereaved people (Gottesdienst für Trauernde) at the Lutheran City Church, and an association called Zentrum für Seelsorge und Kommunikation (SeKo) of the Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession which became a registered association (eingetragener Verein) in 1994), which offered courses in death and grief counselling for more than 13 years.